1 < (10.30 a.m.) 2MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving? 3MR IRVING: My Lord, I have provided your Lordship a copy of 4the fresh off the presses closing speech which I 5would propose to read tomorrow. 6MR JUSTICE GRAY: How does that ---- 7MR IRVING: It is 104 pages. It continues from where the 8version left off which I supplied your Lordship yesterday 9and I have also reversed the order what I would call 10sections 2 and 3 of it. If I can say simply it starts off 11with have an opening preamble. It continues, my Lord, 12with a look at some of the historical issues and then only 13after a while does it, after about 30 pages, then go on to 14what I call bundle E matters. 15MR JUSTICE GRAY: Just so I understand how the two relate to 16one another, I had yesterday from you 56 pages, I think it 17was. 18MR IRVING: Yes. 19MR JUSTICE GRAY: Are they the first 56 pages? 20MR IRVING: They are the first 56 pages, but they have been 21cosmetically worked over. I have ---- 22MR JUSTICE GRAY: Have they? 23MR IRVING: --- a gentleman who I refer to as my political 24correctness editor, he came over and worked over it for 25me. 26MR JUSTICE GRAY: Good. I have read and marked up slightly

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1what you gave me yesterday. 2MR IRVING: That is what I feared. The page numbers will make 3no sense to you now, my Lord, because of the bulk change 4I did. I switched, effectively, sections 2 and 3, 5although they are not numbered, purely to put them into a 6more optimistic up beat sequence. 7MR JUSTICE GRAY: Right. I will try to -- I see, yes, it is 8completely changed . 9MR IRVING: When I get back, my Lord, I am sure it will help 10your Lordship if I produce a brief concordance and fax it 11through to your office which will give your Lordship an 12overview. 13MR JUSTICE GRAY: I can probably make my own way through it. 14MR IRVING: I have put headings in ---- 15MR JUSTICE GRAY: Thank you very much. 16MR IRVING: --- which will assist your Lordship. I would also 17just like to say I had not at the time I wrote it had the 18opportunity of reading the Defendants' own statement. So 19it is written in vacuo, so to speak, not that it will 20alter matters, I am sure. 21MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think the theory was there was going to be 22an exchange so that is inevitable. 23MR IRVING: Effectively, there has been an exchange, 24simultaneous change, because I am sure they have not read 25mine and I have not read theirs. 26MR JUSTICE GRAY: Good. Thank you very much.

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1MR RAMPTON: Your Lordship has got I think now, I hope, a 2complete version of our written submission. All the 3sections are now, I hope, complete. 4MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. 5MR RAMPTON: It is right. I will not not say any more about 6that at the moment. It is over 200 pages of rather dense 7reading. I will tomorrow, as I have your Lordship's 8permission, I think, make a very much shorter summary 9submission orally. I have not written that yet. Your 10Lordship will not find any of the contents of it, having 11regard to this, in the least surprising, I am sure. 12I shall try to make sure that your Lordship gets it and 13Mr Irving in good time before the hearing starts tomorrow. 14MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. 15MR RAMPTON: But I will be surprised if I am on my feet for 16even more than a part of tomorrow morning. 17MR JUSTICE GRAY: Good. Mr Irving, you are proposing to do the 18same thing, as I understand it? 19MR IRVING: I was hoping for some kind of guidance from your 20Lordship. If your Lordship would mark in bulk or inform 21me in bulk at some time which passages you felt were not 22proper to deal with orally or in detail. It is a detailed 23submission which I have made to your Lordship and your 24Lordship may feel that some of the matters are too 25detailed to be dealt with in a closing statement. 26MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think I will give you a bit of guidance

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1because, having read yesterday's 56 pages, and I do not 2say this critically but it did appear to me that there was 3a great deal on the topic about which you obviously feel 4passionately, namely what you see as being a conspiracy to 5bring your career as an author to a premature end. Those 6are not your words, I appreciate. 7MR IRVING: I astutely avoided that word. 8MR JUSTICE GRAY: No, but there is an awful lot on that topic. 9Much of it did not appear to me to have anything to do 10with the Defendants. You may take a different view, but 11I am not sure that the evidence suggests that the 12Defendants are as involved with all the things of which 13you are complaining as you suggest. I, therefore, rather 14doubt whether it would be appropriate for you to use this 15court as a platform for what one might call a general 16attack on the conspirators, as you regard them. 17MR IRVING: That is precisely the view that I expected from 18your Lordship which I obviously anticipated in the letter 19that I attached to the document. 20MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. 21MR IRVING: I will edit substantially with that in mind before 22I come to make the oral presentation. 23MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. 24MR IRVING: It will remain a part of the submission that I make 25to the court, but it will not be put in the oral part of 26the submission, if I can put it like that.